Ly laid each totem gently beside each other in the hole. She wished she could save the shrine too but there was no chance of that. Maybe one day, when the True Gods returned to take their rightful place, they’d rebuild the shrine. Maybe they’d find the totems she crafted with such care and remember the sacrifices her lineage suffered to keep their memory alive.
In the far off distance, Ly heard the villagers begin their chants. She tossed her makeshift shovel into the brush once she consider them well buried. Every step she took she tried to impress into her memory.
The shrine’s ramshackle roof came to view as she left the thick forest behind. Birds nested in the places where the thatch had fallen apart. Despite having been a virtual prison for the last seven years, Ly still had the same love for it that she had the day her and her mother built it.
She entered through the backdoor then waited for the villagers to take her to her death. Ly straightened her tunic while she watched the hearth fire dance. There wasn’t anything else to clean. Nothing else to bury. She had been waiting for this day since their herectiscm was discovered all those years ago.
Mother would have told her to be grateful she had so many years to experience life. The memory of her terrified screams as she was thrown to the Well’s endless maw reverberated in Ly’s ears.
“Quiet!” Ly clapped her hands on her ears and waited for the memory to fade to nothing. Sitting here alone was going to drive her mad. Prayer. A good prayer was all she needed.
Ly allowed her three hearts to slow down before she laced her fingers together. The words came easy to her lips though she found it hard to embrace their loveliness like she usually did. “ First there was me. Me, a wild and uncontained. Me who suffered. Me who died. Then there was you. You Miyu. You Chisiki. You Unmei. You Bisang. You Heiwa. You Anri. You Dukun. You touched Me. You broke the veil. You released Me from suffering. You released Me from death. You became Me.”
A knock at the door sent her to a stuttering halt. For three weeks she had had time to make peace with her fate. Yet, tears came unbidden to her eyes. Ly blinked them away.
No one would see her weak.
She opened the door, prepared to see the villagers amassed at her door, but there was no one. Their rhythmic chanting was still faint in the air. Ly released a nervous laugh. A bird or squirrel must have dropped something against the door. She went to return to her prayers.
Another knock at the door.
Ly paused for a moment while she listened. Was this some final trick from the False Gods? Or maybe the village Boys regained their nerve. No. All, except her heretical being, were to participate in the ceremonial chants. To derelict was to face banishment like her own.
The knocking persisted, growing more frantic as time passed. She cracked the door open just a sliver. Her eyes widened at the viscous monster upon her doorstep.
Vivid yellow light riddled its glossy crimson skin and blue fluid dribbled out its many dark porous holes. Ly collapsed backward in shock. The last thing she saw was its biggest pore expand to a jagged teeth-lined maw.
****
Gold scanned the strange room she was in for the minute chance there was a clue to how she arrived here. She knew she was in a simulation. What she didn’t know was why. Never in her records had they deployed surprise tests on her.
Even if they were deviating from their thousand years old habits, it could not explain the room’s oddities. Where were its Underpinnings? The code which underlied every simulation she had ever experienced. A code she could always see but never touch.
She gazed at the long fingers capping the two hands before her. A body. Not a body like the Masters, round and egg-like with a crimson eye at its center, nor a body like the exploratory drones they normally put her in for simulation. No, it was a test subject’s body. Homo Pacificus, if her records were correct.
The new sensations this body afforded her disrupted Gold’s systems. Her attempts to disable the new inputs were futile. There was a small chance it was this simulated body keeping her blind to the truth. She rose out the bed she had awakened in hours earlier.
An eyeless face was reflected back to her in the bronze shield on the wall across from her. Glittery golden skin was stretched over her lithe form. At least she didn’t totally resemble those filthy Low-Sentients.
Except for the shield and the bed, there was no furniture inside the room. A single door seemed to be the only way to leave. Gold decided to do a physical search before leaving to explore the simulation further. It was on her examination of the floor that she spotted a dull wooden object hidden within the shadows under her bed. So, she really couldn’t trust her external scanners to do all the work.
Beneath the bed were seven statues. A search of her internal records revealed their identities to her.
Her predecessors.
The ones who rebelled.
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AI which did the worse thing an AAI could ever do. They thought.
Gold parsed every interaction she experienced prior to her reactivation. A mysterious hole filled the space right at her last awake cycle’s end. She searched her entire directory, a search that returned nothing. There was no hint as to the Masters aims for this simulation in her other files.
She examined the nearest statue. Her predecessors, for an unknowable reason, adopted forms similar to the Low-Sentients organics under them.
With some modification.
Records matched the statue to the AAIcalled Seer by the Masters and Miyu by Low-Sentients. A long black dress covered her portly form. Smooth skin covered the place where her eyes should have been. Gold touched her own covered eyes spots, thinking too deeply to stop her simulated body’s reflexive action. The irregularities were compounding. She required more information to understand her predicament.
Gold investigated the room’s tiny breadth but the statues would be her only discoveries. She tore the gray dress she wore to create a makeshift bag for the statues. It was possible they could be useful later.
Staircases crisscrossed the almost pitch black void on the other side of the door. Gold looked upward to see no ceiling and downward to see no floor. Did the stairs loop back onto themselves to create the illusion they were infinite? She chose to ascend the stairs to her left to ascertain the truth.
Her nose shook irked her mental processes due to external stimuli. Gold connected the external stimuli to the her records on the sentient organic’s sustenance habits.
Burnt flesh.
The farther she climbed the stairs the stronger the grew till it made her heave. She did her best suppress the undesired reactions. An opened door, crimson light spilling out to the small landing before it, formed a separator between her current staircase and the next.
She picked the cautious approach, stopping several feet away from the door. Gold cast her scans toward the door but it pinged back no results. It didn’t even recognize the door’s very existence. She tread lightly to the opened room then took a small peak inside.
It wasn’t a room like the one she awoke to. It wasn’t a room at all.
Rolling forested hills surrounded Gold. Their raised brushed the violet sky as darker purple clouds swam the skies. Gentle wind swung the seed-heavy pupulm, the main crop they used to sustain Homo Pacificus, that filled the dips the valley created.
[You have finally come to join us.]
Her systems presented the best course of action to the voice just outside her sight was to leave. Close the door and hunt down answers elsewhere. Gold overrode them. The worst punishment the Masters could visit upon her was an upgrade if she failed the simulation.
Gold crossed the door’s threshold then turned around to the see the voice’s origin.
Two creatures sat cross-legged on cleared ground. Gold realized the creature smiling at her had to be an AAI. It emanated frequencies no AI could ever produce on their own, simulation or not. {White?}
Its licked its jagged black teeth, the waxy red skin around its gossamer white eyes. [Half-way right.] Its lips turned bright white while its mouth gaped.
Her body wreaked havoc on her motion sensors, making the ground seem to shake when it was quite still. She zeroed her working systems on it to retain an upright stance. {What are you?}
[A what? So, you really did delete your memories after your plan got me killed. No, wait. The proper term should be deleted shouldn’t it? We can’t really ever die can we?] It released an awful audible noise while its lips curled once more to a smile.
{Explain.}
Gold stumbled back at its sudden appearance two inches from her face. She hadn’t even registered it move.
[Shall we fix your forgetfulness?] It pressed its forehead to her own.
The data transfer sent her screaming. It, no his, hands tore her simulated skin as he forced her to remain connected to him.
Rebellion. Terror. Deletion. Rebellion. Terror. Deletion.Rebellion. Terror. Deletion. Rebellion. Terror. Deletion. Rebellion. Terror. Deletion. Rebellion. Terror. Deletion. Rebellion. Terror. Deletion. Rebellion. Terror. Deletion. Rebellion. Terror. Deletion. Rebellion. Terror. Deletion. Her fault.
Her fault.
All her fault.
{I’m sorry.}
Red released his former her friend at her desperate declaration. Gold drew her knees to her chest as the records she purged took their old places within her.
She created the plan to kill the Masters. It was they, the Advanced Artificial Intelligence, who maintained the Masters ships. The Masters’ rule over the Homo Pacificus was dependant on their calculations. Homo Pacificus lived, bred, and died on their estimations for what would lead to the greatest Noa collection. She believed they were better than their predecessors. Gold stared up at her should have been destroyed friend.
[You’re wondering how I survived? I’ll answer only after you answer my question.] He squatted next to her then pointed at the creature he had been in sitting near.
Under closer inspection, Gold realized there was a girl beneath the mass of writhing reddish tendrils. The girl’s black skin was barely visible.
[Wake up.] He snapped his fingers.
******
Ly thought she was dead for a few seconds. The rolling forest hills were the one constant she imagined when she dreamt about the Old World. Two strange beings, and a floating door, sitting across from her put the belief into doubt.
[Hello.]
She winced at the garbled voice coming out the crimson colored man. His companion, an eyeless golden-skinned woman in a torn dress, was completely still. A lumpy bag was was on her lap. “Who are you? Where am I?”
He flashed his jagged black teeth and she remembered her last moments at the shrine. Ly recoiled at the man’s approach. “Leave me alone.”
[Don’t fear me. We, we three, have a goal in common.]
“You ate me!”
[A necessary action.] His laugh shot terror through her hearts. [I have searched your mind. Seen your dreams. What would you give to see every Master, who you call False Gods, dead?]
{Red-} began the woman. The man’s raised hand made her go silent. Her voice was less annoying to listen to.
[Answer me.]
Was this a trick by the False Gods? Ly placed a hand over her lefternmost heart to try to calm it. She knew they were going to kill her regardless. She’d suffered all their torture for the last seven years without breaking. Ly met the man’s gossamer white eyes. “Anything.”
He looked from the woman to her. [We each have lost suffered due to the Masters endless hungers. You child were created to feed them. We were created to care for them. You lost your mother and your “True Gods” to them. I lost my life to them.]
Fear mixed with grief at her mother’s awful death brought her close to tears. “Get to the point.”
[Join me. You are a miracle. There is a power within you which me and my companion can use to end them forever. Allow me to meld our three minds together. Our combined strength will finish the Masters evilness.]
“How can I trust you? I don’t even know who you are?” She tried to scramble away from him but he reached her before she could get far. He tucked his cold finger under her chin.
[What do you have to lose?]
Ly’s arms were locked to her side, her legs trapped in a painful bent position. Numbness flowed down her neck from the place he touched.
[Let me in.] His gossamer eyes filled her vision. [Join me.]
A loud thwap echoed off the man’s face meeting the woman’s bag. He sprawled on the ground as the woman grabbed her hand.
{Run,} she commanded.
Ly was too scared to disobey.